Science Fact and Science Fiction

1860s Jules Verne, “the father of science fiction”, predicts submarines (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1869), skyscrapers (Paris in the Twentieth Century 1863) and a flight to the moon (From the Earth to the Moon 1865) long before they became reality.

1903 K.E. Tsiolkovsky writes Exploration of Space. His ideas on rocket design and fuelling are used by scientists to design the Skylab space station.

1921 Karel Capek writes Rossum’s Universal Robots which introduces the concept and word “robot” into the English language.

1942 Isaac Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics in “Runaround” which have been adopted by scientists trying to develop artifical intelligence.

1944 Cleve Cartmill in “Deadline” describes a bomb powered by uranium-235. His technical details were so close to the top secret Manhattan Project which was developing the world’s first nuclear weapon that for a time authorities believed they had a spy.

1949 George Orwell’s dystopia 1984 introduced many terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and memory hole. “Moreover, Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective Orwellian, which refers to official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past in service to a totalitarian political agenda.” The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Sixth Edition. University of Oxford Press: 2000. p. 726